CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

What Embodied Success Can Look Like | EP 457

• Sheila Botelho

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As we step into a new year, it’s tempting to make grand plans and overcommit to big changes in pursuit of our dreams. But often, the path to sustainable success lies in the small, intentional steps we take every day. In this episode, I share how rebuilding self-trust through incremental shifts in our wellness routines can help us stay energized and aligned as we tackle our goals.


I’ll explore how practices like improving sleep quality, adding simple nutrition upgrades, and incorporating movement into your day can set the foundation for an empowered, balanced approach to life and work. When your body and mind are in harmony, you’re able to show up for your goals from a place of strength, not burnout.


This conversation is for anyone who’s ever felt stuck in patterns of overthinking or overwhelmed by what they haven’t yet achieved. Tune in for encouragement, actionable tips, and a reminder that building the life you desire starts with small steps—and a lot of self-compassion.


PS: Thanks so much for listening. I would love your review! If you enjoy what I share in this episode, rate, Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/connect-with-sheila-botelho/id1527363160 I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Sheila:

You get to have a semblance of control over that which you do, and it all starts with knowing that you're not alone and that you get to build that self-trust one step at a time. It doesn't need to be in big giant quantum leaps. It can come that way and be open for that. I invite you to be open for that. However, it doesn't need to be a huge splash every time you want to do something new. Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast.

Sheila:

I'm an entrepreneur, self-care strategist and a creator of the Seasons self-care app. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your wellbeing and build your version of a happy, successful life. And on today's solo chat, I wanted to come to you to talk to you about truly embodying the type of person that you want to be while you're building your dream life, whatever that may look like. We have come through the season the holiday season I was talking about on Monday's Minnesota, about the resetting for the new year, et cetera and one thing that is so important to continually be thinking about is every single goal that you have and every single thing that you want to set out to do this year where you are involved, where you're needing to show up for it in some fashion, even if it's just to set it in motion and have a team take it and run with it. It has to come from within yourself and what's super important to understand is it comes from your body. So how are you taking care of your body? So many people will start flooding gyms and start making all these grandiose plans about how they're going to treat their bodies better this year. I really hope that this is something that is important to you as well, and we can burn ourselves out very easily, overdoing it right from the get-go, having these grandiose plans that may feel a little bit unattainable. We are trying to rebuild some self-trust with maybe the promises we broke over the last few months of celebration and of being so busy in our lives, or maybe over the past few years.

Sheila:

Wherever you're at, I just want you to know you get to be gentle with yourself as you go about your wellbeing, because it's not a one and done thing. True wellbeing, true wellness, is day by day. It is a lifestyle, and for any new habit to take hold, it takes time and consistency. It's not something that your wellbeing is going to be elevated immediately within one week of following certain protocols. I just want you to be able to look at your goals for this year in taking care of yourself, so that you can fully reach the dreams and the goals that you have in the other parts of your life, if you look at your body as the key element to achieving those things, so that when you make the achievement, when you reach the goal, when you make the achievement, when you reach the goal, when you hit that milestone, when you meet with those people, when you create that thing, whatever it is, you get to actually experience it from a place of fullness and enjoy it and not be burnt out.

Sheila:

So often in my history as well, this season of wanting to hit it hard as we start the new year has often landed me getting quite sick in middle of February, and this is many years ago. Fortunately, I shifted how I viewed things and how I would respond to my new year's plans, et cetera, as I come into each new season of life, business, et cetera, because I started to think about how do I want to feel while I'm showing up in these new things, and it did involve putting into practice some new habits. However, I got real with myself about what is actually doable. For me. That feels like something I will stay consistent with.

Sheila:

And what has been a game changer for me and for my clients is incremental shifts. So having one thing, starting with the one thing, that is going to help elevate everything and start with that shift. So what does that mean? Does that mean, perhaps, getting more rest, because if you have more rest, better quality rest, you have more energy to step into all of the other elements of the things you want to achieve this year. So how do we get more rest? Okay, go to bed an hour earlier. Go to bed two hours earlier. So how do we get more rest? Okay, go to bed an hour earlier, go to bed two hours earlier. That feels drastic, doesn't it?

Sheila:

So what has worked so well for me over the years is making those incremental shifts of like 15 minutes earlier every night for a week to get to my time, that is desired, to go to bed, and then or it could be five minutes earlier or 10 minutes earlier, whatever works for you and then also, maybe turning off my phone 10 minutes earlier than usual and instead replacing that 10 minutes where I may have been scrolling on my phone to flipping through a book or sitting in front of my red light I have a beautiful Cala red light that I'd book, or sitting in front of my red light. I have a beautiful Cala red light that I love to sit in front of in the evenings and it's really been helpful for rejuvenation and for healing, for recovery and getting me ready for sleep as well. And I do have some incandescent red light bulbs in a few different lamps in my home on different floors so that when I'm ready to signal to my brain it's time to get ready for bed, I put those on. My phone is off, that comes on. I can even read by that lamp quite well, and I have my special readers on for nighttime as well. So it's something that can be incremental and when you do it in little chunks like that, you start to be able to congratulate yourself for the one day that you did it, and then the two days that you did it, and then the three days, and then before you know it it's been three weeks, it's been a month and you're like look what I did. And once you're able to get these new habits happening, then you can start to look at what are the other things, what is the next step that is going to help you feel better as you're going about reaching your goals this year?

Sheila:

So, if you've got sleep dial in, what would be next? Maybe it's adding more plants to your diet. So what could that mean? Think about one vegetable that you want to make friends with and start adding it in every day. Just one meal a day. Chopping it up, putting it on a salad, putting it in a smoothie, if you feel like, okay, I want to do more kale. A smoothie is a great way to do it. We've had conversations about this over the holidays with friends and they're like kale has no place in a smoothie, in my opinion. I love kale in my smoothie because I put so many other good things in there, but you could also like massage up and chop up the kale and just put it in your salad with other things, or cook it, saute it with some mushrooms and some garlic and some onions and like have it in there with your beautiful protein, and there you go, voila, you have some kale right, doing it in a healthy way, of course.

Sheila:

What is it for you? What is the one thing you're going to start with, and then what are the other elements, because when you get your sleep dialed in, when you get your nutrition dialed in and when you get your movement of your body dialed in for instance, maybe you're going to walk 10 minutes a day extra If you're not taking walks already you're going to start. You're going to lace up those boots or shoes wherever you live, bundle up if you live where I live, and you're going to get outside and walk down the street and back. That's where you're going to start and then you're going to congratulate yourself for doing that. And when we do those incremental shifts, everything else starts to elevate, because when we are rested, when we are nourished and when we move our bodies, we have the energy to do the other things that maybe we have been delaying because we've been in our heads. Another piece of this is the value of not allowing yourself to stagnate, not allowing yourself to be stuck in your head.

Sheila:

I had a few beautiful client conversations today with people who did just that recently, over the holidays. They were very open about how they spent some time to rest, which I applauded. I think it's so important to do that and they started to notice that after a while they were rested and then the lack of motivation. They're really noticing it and they started to realize it wasn't that they were tired. It was that they were in their head about all the things they wanted to do and needed to do, and they were then in their head about what they didn't accomplish last year.

Sheila:

My invitation to you is to remember you are right on time. You are at a place in your life where, if you're still here listening to this or watching this, this is a message for you and I invite you to look at it as a signal that you get to look at where are you in your head too much and how do you get out of your head? Move your body, get on a phone call with someone, have a conversation, work through externally what you've been noodling over in your mind, what has been holding you back. Find a trusted confidant, a coach, somebody to help you look at those things that are spinning around in your mind and dissect it a little bit. Don't spend too much time on it, but just think, hey, what's one action step that can actually take this idea or all of these ideas and move me forward, because I really believe that action creates clarity. It can be as simple as taking yourself on a walk with one goal in mind of solving one challenge in your life that you keep noodling over in your mind.

Sheila:

Because, if you're like me and if you're like many people that I work with, it's typically the same one or two things that keep coming up in our mind, that keep spinning around and we're not making action on them because, for some reason, we feel stuck. And when you move your body and you look at what is possible, when you look outside of what you've been doing in your mind, when you say, well, I look around me at nature, I look around me at all of the world moving forward. Where can I move forward? What do I need to let go of? When you move your body, answers typically come. When you move your body, answers typically come. And this is my most beautiful way to connect with spirit, to connect with God, is to be on my walks and really tune in and tune out the other voices and the comparison and the judgments from others and of others relating to those things that are spinning around in my mind.

Sheila:

When I take time walking and talking in nature, talking to God in my case, I'm able to say here's the thing that I keep spinning about. What can I let go of and how can I actually make a step? What would move me out of this? What is the one thing? Often the answers are inside of you, and when you get quiet enough to be with yourself and to really think about what the action step is, that's when you start making progress, that's when you can move forward. We can think so much, and then, once you have that idea of what is that one thing usually it is a conversation, it is a phone call, it is a Zoom call, it is a text I prefer phone calls. Sometimes texts can get lost in translation, you know, with really important things. A phone call, a Zoom call, creating something, just finally putting your stake in the ground about whatever it is that you want to do then the next step becomes clear. But nothing's going to happen until you take that step. So start by moving your body and see what comes up for you. So I invite you to really think about taking care of you, your body, first, and then realizing that your mind is going to start revamping itself second, and then everything will start to flow.

Sheila:

One of the biggest challenges in our life that we face is staying stuck in the pattern of looking at what we haven't accomplished, of eroding our self-trust by every day, not taking action toward that thing that we really desire, and just continually spinning the loops of thoughts in our mind about what we didn't do and how we feel about the fact that we didn't do it, and then why? As a result, maybe we just can't do it, so maybe we should give up. And then it's one thing to say I'm going to let that go and move in another direction. But too often we stay stuck in oh, I didn't do that thing and feeling bad about it. So how do you build self-trust? Take care of you and take the first steps.

Sheila:

It may sound like I'm making this sound too simple, but so often transformation, the beginning of it, is actually simple, but it's uncomfortable. Bundling up and going on a cold walk that can be challenging. Making a call to connect with another business, to do a collaboration, to make that sales call for that thing that you've created, that no one's ever done before. You've never done this work and now you want to put it out into the world. It's going to be uncomfortable, that's okay. The reason why it's uncomfortable is because you've never done it before and your brain is trying to conserve energy. In this season especially, it's trying to conserve energy to keep you safe and warm and nourished and rested and well and healthy. And so it's saying why are you wanting to do that thing? That's new, we've never done it before, it might not work and I don't know. You're not going to feel safe. You have those feelings in your body come up, and so that's where the discomfort is.

Sheila:

But when you remind yourself of those times where you've done something new and something really wonderful has come out on the other side and, even if it's not been the result that you've been looking for, you've made action, steps forward and you've actually moved in a different direction, taken a slight pivot that never would have happened unless you had gotten started. Remind yourself of those times. You've had your first steps, you've had your first job, you've had your first relationship, your first pet, perhaps your first child. Oh, my goodness, some of these things we think I've never done this before. What if it doesn't work out? What if it doesn't work out? That's our brain trying to keep us safe.

Sheila:

My question for you to start asking yourself is what if this works out better than I could imagine? And what if it working out meant that all I need to do is get a little more rest so I can move my body and then have the energy to make the call, to create the thing, to have the conversation. That is where it all begins. It's our inner world that is impacting what's happening on the outside, and then sometimes we need to take care of the outer part of us, like the physical body, to allow the inner world to open up and feel expansive and to feel energized.

Sheila:

I want you to know you're not alone in this time of perhaps trying to rebuild self-trust in your life, to trying to do something new and feeling like it's so hard. You're not alone in it. Even the most successful people that you may see around you have an element of that in their life, and I can tell you that from my own personal experience of working with people who are on the outside like everything is shiny and beautiful and successful and money is flowing and multiple homes and beautiful families on the outside, and then you get to hear what's really happening on the inside, and it's usually a lot of beauty, but there's still sometimes people carrying with them old patterns, old beliefs about themselves. They're struggling with something at any given time, but, of course, not showing the whole world. Everybody's got a backstory and everybody's going through something.

Sheila:

So you are not alone, and anytime any of us, no matter what level of success we're at, reach out to do something new, our brain is saying whoa, whoa, whoa. This is new. And so thank you, brain. We appreciate you Keep our body operating and you get to have agency over your brain to be in big, giant quantum leaps. It can come that way and be open for that. I invite you to be open for that. However, it doesn't need to be a huge splash every time you want to do something new. It can come incrementally, and often in my life I've found the incremental shifts are the ones in my wellbeing practices especially that really last, and then you have a strong foundation to build everything else on top of.

Sheila:

So this year, as everybody's telling you so many different things, you got to do this, read this book, go, take this course. All you need is this one thing, and it's cost this much, and just do it and all of those things. Know that you get to go at your own pace. I will always say that you'll get to go at your own pace and you may even surprise yourself with, once you start going at your own pace, taking it incrementally, how much faster and further you will be able to go as you continue. Keep listening, keep watching, because I'm going to be having interviews and conversations about this through the year and checking in with you to see how you're doing.

Sheila:

We need each other going through this experience of building the life of more, whether it's in our personal or professional lives, in our careers and our businesses. It is not for the faint of heart. If you have a growth mindset, if you want your life to be different than it was before, if you want an elevated level of joy and success, if you're building a legacy of success and by success I mean your version of success, success of like beautiful wellbeing and prosperity in all areas of your life follow along. We need each other and it is a practice. So thank you so much for being here, thank you for listening and watching, and, if this is something you want to be deepening into from an embodiment practice, I have a beautiful embodied success method.

Sheila:

It's five steps, it's super short, it's free. You can DM me the word or go to the show notes and tap on the link to get the embodiment practice. It is a method and a meditation and that is going to support you in choosing what are those things that are next for you. It's super simple and short as well. It's not super time consuming, because I know you've got lots going on in your life. I want to support you and this is one of the ways that I can do it. So thanks for listening. Go check that out. Have a beautiful rest of your week taking care of you. Big blessings.